


Phantoms of London

by GrimRevolution



Series: The Hatter and the Cat [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 02:43:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/GrimRevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They walk in shadows, these phantoms on the streets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phantoms of London

**Author's Note:**

> An AU where the Doctor stays in Victoria London with Clara, the Snowmen incident doesn't happen, and he just gets used to the idea of another friend while still staying in his solitude and keeping out of the public eye.

It was a secret in the dark shadows of the alley ways, passed between ears and lips, murmured softly in shadows and darkened rooms, candles and lights and lanterns snuffed out so nothing, not even the still air, could betray their words. A ghost, they urged. A ghost in the pit, on the street, in the homes.  
Detective Harold Wilson didn’t believe in ghosts. He didn’t believe in demons or spirits or creatures of myth and legend. He told that to Madame Vastra, veiled as she was in her greeting room with a glass of red wine in her hand and a smile of secrets on her handmaiden’s face.   
“You might want to believe,” she had told him.   
When he first saw him, he thought he had been dreaming; the figure standing in front of the alleyway, hands clasped behind his back, slouched only slightly forward with a wide brimmed top hat covering his face. His clothes were dark and the shadows played upon him like he was their loving father.   
The hat tilted back ever so slightly and Detective Harold Wilson found his breath catching as the light of a window glinted off something bright—an eye, he assumed—and it shone out from the shadows, watching him like a star in a black well.   
A carriage passed between them, and when the wheels passed, the figure was gone, melting away like the darkness that swarmed him. There were no footsteps where he had stood, no markings in the snow or the mud. Just silence and the dark alley beyond, beckoning with tempting whispers and the promise of a deep black. Wilson turned away, stepping quickly, not daring to look back.  
It was late in the evening when he saw him again, walking down the empty street. He wore the same clothes; all dark and rich and thick. The same hat on his head, tilted slightly to the side.  
And a short woman beside him, dressed in a deep red that reminded him of the wine Vastra had been drinking when he had visited her. The skirts nipped at her ankles and snapped at the snow on the ground, rustling when she lifted them, calming just slightly before they were placed down again.   
“Wait!” He cried out for them, ignoring decorum as he ran over the slippery cobblestones, reaching out.  
She looked back, her eyes wide and shining under the stars—and a smile spread across her face, full of teeth and glowed like the moon above—the only light in the dark. Her hair was silken chocolate, afforded only by the rich, skin like pale butterscotch. He was stunned, momentarily by her, before the two turned into an alley.  
When he reached it, they had disappeared.  
Detective Harold Wilson didn’t believe in ghosts, but he was starting to. He sat in the bars around the alleys, listening to the murmurs and drunken tales of men.  
The ghosts of the alleyways, the phantoms of the stars.  
The hatter and the cat.


End file.
